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User blog:G Frost-Ogaji/The History of Ninjago Leaks
The history of Ninjago is more or less well-known among fans. You can divide it into different categories, about the show, the sets, behind the scenes, or even the fandom. One of the lesser known sides of its history is of the leaks that come paired with each coming season. This blog will be divided into sections detailing the leaks as well as fan reception over the course of the years. 2013 - Early Days (Season 2 and the Purple Ninja) After the success of the initial first season of the Ninjago TV show, fans were anxiously anticipating the return of their favorite LEGO action cartoon. In the younger days of the internet, leaks were not always as credible as they are today. As a 10-year-old kid, I would scavenge the internet for any hint of Ninjago's return. I think I remember my very first encounter with a fake leak was with the infamous "purple ninja." When the names of the episodes were leaked for real, a fan put together a fake plot summary basing the villains off of pirates, and adding a new ninja to the team, Lloyd's friend Finn. At the time, I believed this to be fact. It wasn't until later that week that my friend told me something interesting. He said that the seasons villains weren't pirates, but spiders. He claimed to have read it in a magazine, and his logic was that every season would have a villain who's name started with an 's.' Skeletons, Snakes, Spiders? Made sense right? Being a little kid, these things stuck in my brain in detail. I remember specifically finding this image online and truly believing it to be the Ninja's new suits for the season. Fortunately I was dead wrong about that one... could you imagine? 2015 - New York Toy Fair and the 6th Ninja Now, unfortunately, I had a bit of a falling out with Ninjago after the end of Season 2, so I wasn't involved in any of the leaks for Seasons 3 and 4, but I did return at just the right time for New York Toy Fair 2015, where the Season 5 sets were shown. This event would be one of the first that sparked widespread debate over the fandom. Of course, as the name suggests, the Toy Fair showed off the new toys coming from the LEGO Ninjago line. Me and the other 14-year-olds were excited to see the Ninja's new suits, the new villains, and the new sets, but there was one new character that stood out. A new ninja, blue and red, a girl, who stood out from the rest of the Ninja. A sixth Ninja? What? How? Who? Were all questions that passed through our minds that day. It was clear from the image that this new character was not new at all-- it was Nya (or at least that's what I thought at the time.) This, seeming obvious conclusion, was not so obvious to several people in the fandom at the time. People guessed that Skylor had returned, or this was a totally new character. Although the debate did not get too hostile, situations like this would only worsen with time. This was only the beginning. "Piracy" and the Pirate Ninja (SDCC 2016) After season 5 aired, fans were anxiously anticipating more news on Ninjago's sixth season. Our demands were met during San Diego Comic Con 2016 when the writers of the show showed us an exclusive clip from the second episode featuring Jay sneaking around a restaurant, revealing that the Ninja are now wanted fugitives. Something else they showed was a pirate flag... Yes! Finally, pirates have made it as the main villains of a season! These two things paired together lead the fandom to come up with several correct assumptions: as said before, pirates would take the mantle of villainous faction of this season, and that Jay would be the focus character. People were freaking out, including me. Fans dubbed this season "Piracy," which was not only wrong, but flat out ridiculous sounding. (This fan-naming business would evolve into something terrible much later.) As fans speculated on the premise of the upcoming season, some made fan-made images like sets, a banner, and Ninja suits to predict what the new season was going to look like. As for me, I was doing the same. I was particularly excited about the smaller details, like Jay's face appearing during "previously on Ninjago" and all that. In fact, I was so excited to find out, that I made it myself. To the left is the image I created. Seeing as Jay's future reflection in the previous season had an eyepatch, and the new villains were pirates, I just figured, you know? Anyway if you look close at the detail it's clearly edited. Feeling proud of my work, I posted the image on my Instagram (which has since been deleted,) and people seemed to like it! So much in fact... that people thought it was real. As of now I have found 11 videos showcasing my edit, claiming that this is a real leak from the show. When I first found out about this I went NUTS. I could not believe that these people really thought my picture was real! The picture that I made with greasy fingers at a pizza place while on vacation in New Hampshire... Wow. At first I was flattered, but when I saw more and more people claiming it as real, some even claiming they made it I went a-wall. Needless to say I harassed multiple people about it and never got any of the videos taken down but oh well. Anyway, as the leak season continued, the Ninja suits were leaked, and then the sets were leaked as drawings. It was a happy time (besides the aforementioned incident.) Season 7 and Samurai VXL After Season 6 and the Day of the Departed leaks, I had only been around for the sets to leak, meaning I was not around for the real juicy stuff. I once again returned to the fandom as Hands of Time was airing, and I was caught up with the leaks. There was a new Samurai X, and this time it wasn't Nya. Once again, the fandom was plunged into civil war as people debated the identity of this new character. It was clearly P.I.X.A.L. once the season aired, but even still people debated their identity. (Side note, people referred to her as "Samurai VXL" for a while... Don't ask me why...) People got into arguments and debates about the topic. Most people that were wrong believed that she was either Skylor or Seliel (ugh.) Don't even get me started... Incoming Fan Rage! (SDCC and the Infamous Redesigns) This event would go down in Ninjago's history as possibly our lowest as a fandom. During San Diego Comic Con 2018, Tommy Andreason and the Ninjago Crew released a new clip from the eight season of Ninjago. The new clip was awesome-- but there was one thing about it that was a stab in the back to fans. Lloyd, as well as the other Ninja, were being redesigned in order to match their movie counterparts. This blew us fans away, and the fandom was totally split. Although taken aback at first, I eventually came to really appreciate the new designs. Other people, even to this day, refuse to accept the changes. This backlash lead to Tommy having to take to Twitter to explain how ridiculous we all sounded. Hundreds of fans complained, begged, and threatened for the designs to be returned to normal, but the damage was done. This lead to the creators of the show distrusting the fandom with new material and even leading Tommy to take a break from Twitter. With that out of the way however, everyone else was still pretty hyped for the new season. By the time it came around, everyone was debating this time over the identity of a new mystery character, Mr. E. Now, I personally thought the character was the Overlord in disguise. Others thought it was possibly Echo Zane or even General Cryptor. Whatever you believed, it was clear that this person had some secret identity. However, when it was finally revealed that he was nobody people lost hope. Hey, my theory lined up pretty well... Other misc. things floating around during this time was the identity of the baby (or "Baby Sack" as dubbed by fans,) the identity of the Quiet One, the mystery of the Oni, and why Harumi was such a good character???? Needless to say our fears were unfounded, as Season 8 would be one of, if not the best season yet... thank goodness. The Mystery of Season 9: "H" Before Hype Season for Sons of Garmadon even finished, a leaked image of Kai surfaced online. (see right.) We all knew at the time that this had to be from Season 9. Eventually each of the s9 Ninja suits leaked online (through the LEGO life app.) It became apparent that the original four Ninja's suits were reminiscent of their s8 suits but battle-torn and with armor, and Lloyd and Nya's suits were brand new. This lead one smart individual (who will remain nameless,) to correctly guess the end of Sons of Garmadon. Hey I was right-- I mean-- fine. It was me. I guessed the ending! No, no please, I don't need an award... Now, something else I would be right about for the coming season was the title. Of course I would need a little help from Tommy, who announced on New Years Eve of 2017 that the title for Season 9 would begin with the letter 'H.' Wow! Big news! This would lead the fandom to speculate about the true title of the season... and it got ugly. Those of you around during this time on this website will remember that several people attempted to prove their theory about the name was right. Whether it was "Home of the Dragons," "Hunters of Dragons," "The Oni of Garmadon," or the worst of them all "Hail of the Oni," I knew that each and every one of them was wrong. Not to toot my own horn but I figured that the season would be one word the whole time. I guess I just figured that he would tell is it was HoD instead of just H. My initial guess was "Herders," but I ended up seriously guessing Hunted! Who's the dumb one now huh, Ninjago Wiki? Jaya and S10: Legacy (SDCC 2018) After the success of Season 8 and 9, me and everyone else in the fandom was anxiously waiting for the next leak. We all knew that SDCC was coming up again, and after last years fiasco, we were looking forward to what they had for us this year. Needless to say, the news wasn't as exciting, but it was good nonetheless. The very first thing given to us, a few weeks before Comic Con, Tommy Andreason tweeted a sneak peak image of what the next season would revolve around. What is this?? I had no clue. The most popular theory for me was that the Ninja were going to split up, hence the two sides of the yin-yang, and this season would focus on Jay and Nya, hence their symbols on the side. As more time went on, we got more and more confused... until SDCC finally arrived. They showed a clip in it's early stages of animation of Jay practicing proposing to Nya. He wasn't proposing for marriage, but asking her to "be his Yang," whatever that meant. And what was he proposing with? The black and white pendant. Wow that's a bummer, I thought. Whatever, a Jay and Nya season wouldn't be half-bad! We were wrong about that part though, as MotO eventually was a rushed mess of a season (but not bad at all.) But I'm getting ahead of myself! Before the season name was revealed, the sets were, and even before that, the set descriptions were. We were well aware that the new set line would be remakes of old sets, which we were all excited for. So, I guessed that the season would be called "Ninjago Origins" or something along those lines. When the set images leaked, on the bottom of the logo, instead of the usual "Masters of Spinjitzu" text, it said "Legacy." This lead us to believe that that was in fact the title of the season. (I was close!) My theory for the season was that the pilots were being remade in 2019 style in order to recount the legacy of Ninjago to show how Jay has been there for Nya after all this time and whatnot. Anyway, everyone was wrong, and the season was about Oni and other complicated nonsense. Moving on... The Curse of the Reboot Treatment (Season 11, The Worst of All) Chapter One: The Fire Chapter Yikes. This one is being split up because it might get long... This one is the fire chapter because the fandom may as well have literally been on fire at this point in time lol. After the end of March of the Oni, there were a lot of fans wondering: "is this the end?" The last season ended with the text "The End" finishing it off, and MotO really seemed like a fitting conclusion to the Ninjago series. Fortunately, we were wrong. Images leaked sooner or later of the new Ninja suits for what most people correctly guessed was Ninjago Season 11. The leaks for this season were nuts. We had fire snakes and ice samurai?? How cool was that? And a new spinner type called Spinjitzu Slam (later called Forbidden Spinjitzu)???? How awesome is this! The Ninja suits were cool, and so far the villains were amazing... Everyone was hyped for this season, until we got some news. A new Ninjago spinnoff series was being made, one with a lower budget on animation and only 11 minute episodes. This spinnof series was supposed to be silly and not as serious as normal Ninjago, so we didn't have to worry, right? Not too much later, a trailer for this new spinnoff series was released in Japanese I believe, and fans went insane. This new styled Ninjago was nothing like we were used to! The Ninja were lazy and ugly, and the new unfinished animation scared everyone to death. The worst part was that what we thought was just a silly spinnoff, was confirmed to be the real Season 11. Then it all came crashing down. Ninjago has dropped the Masters of Spinjitzu subtitle, they dropped Wilfilm for WildBrain (then DHX Studios,) the Ninja became silly, the animation quality was dropped, and the episodes were reduced from 22 minutes to 11. This is what I would call "the reboot treatment." Although Ninjago hasn't actually been rebooted, it started to be marketed as such! Cartoon Network, as well as several other sources, refer to it as a new series! The Ninjago fandom was in chaos. I had little hope. It seemed like my favorite show, which had had a massive rise in maturity in the last three seasons was taking a sudden drop. Once the chaos subsided, I began to regain hope. The sets were revealed, and they looked amazing. The character design still rocked, so I had nothing to worry about. So a trailer showed up with unfinished animation and poor editing, so what? That shouldn't represent the whole season. Boy was I wrong. The only thing I had to criticize was the name of the season. "Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu" sounded wonky and wrong. Way too long for a season name. Fire and Ice would have been much better... But I digress... Chapter Two: The Ice Chapter This one is the Ice Chapter because by the end we're all basically frozen with discontent. You'll see. Anyway... The Season finally aired, but in Ukraine. I couldn't wait for English, so I watched the Ukraine version. I... was extremely underwhelmed. Two episodes were airing a time now (meaning they were basically just 22 minutes,) and as pilots go, "Wasted True Potential" may be the lamest there is. The Ninja have basically lost their mojo after last season, when the whole point of the last season was to show how far they've come! Come on! They became silly, and not to mention, with the new animation style, they looked terrible! I'm not the only one that thinks this though, almost everyone in the fandom were taken aback by the sudden drop in quality... However I still had hope. As the rest of the season came out, my hope dwindled. I won't go into too much detail, but Season 11 is the Worst of All. With the poor animation quality, ridiculous and unneeded filler episodes and fast paced and badly written plot, I enjoyed this season the least. The fandom seems to more or less agree. So that's that, the worst Ninjago season to date. I don't hate all of it though, I quite liked Aspheera's character and backstory, and the Ice Emperor twist was (albeit predictable) really cool. Hopefully next season does better and the writers learn from their mistakes, eh? Enter the Video Game (and more to come!) This can be a placeholder for what's to come, since leak season just began, but the Ninja suits for what is apparently Season 12 have been leaked, and they are so cool. This season is obviously taking a turn to the techy side again, as seen with the white additions to the suits and the video game like enemies that were leaked. As of right now this season is referred to as "Prime Empire" which, as naming goes, isn't quite that bad, especially not as bad as Secrets of the-- forget it it's too long... Anyway, more is to come so stay tuned. Category:Blog posts